| Abstract: | Educators assume a positive relationship between epistemological development and learning. But our understanding of this relationship is limited because it focuses mostly on higher education, and supporting data are biased by gender, ethnicity, and geography. The purpose of this study was to identify factors that encourage changes in Malaysian women's epistemology. Within a cultural framework, two questions guide this study: (a) How does higher education stimulate changes in epistemology in other cultural contexts, and (b) What factors other than higher education encourage changes in epistemology? Based on constant comparative analysis of in-depth interviews with 14 Malaysian women, the author identified three cultural factors that encourage transformation of thinking and knowing: family support of education for women and girls, formal and informal learning experiences, and extended international opportunities. Epistemological development occurs as a woman negotiates conflict between her cultural and personal models of self. |
